Many aircraft are now equipped with a terrain awareness and warning system (TAWS), which is also, at times, referred to as an enhanced ground proximity warning system (EGPWS). The EGPWS, in addition to detecting and providing warnings regarding potential controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) incidents, stores various flight parameter data in a flight history file in a non-volatile memory device. These flight parameters may be used to debrief an incident.
In some systems, if power to the EGPWS is interrupted while flight parameter data are being written to the flight history file, the flight history file can be corrupted. Thus, should a power loss occur during, or near the end, of an incident, it may not be possible to decipher the events leading up to the incident.
Hence, there is a need for a system and method of preventing flight history file corruption in the highly unlikely, yet postulated event of an incident that causes power to the EGPWS to be lost. The present invention addresses at least this need.